Sennheiser takes centre stage for Rihanna and The Script at this weekend?s V Festival

This weekend’s upcoming V Festival sees Sennheiser supporting numerous headlining acts over both days of the outdoor event.

With such varied and high-profile acts as Eminem, Arctic Monkeys and Manic Street Preachers also on the bill, Mark Saunders, Sennheiser UK artist relations manager, discussed the challenges and solutions that come with handling an event of such magnitude: “Last year in Hyde Park and at V North we provided full blown support and at both sites dealt with everything from the small end of the scale – broken cables, missing clips, and so on – up to replacing antennas and having to get the soldering iron out to physically re-wire things.

Radio mic interference is one of the major issues of what we have to deal with at any outdoor gig or event,” he continued. “While we supply any equipment for support in a way that means it should happily run interference-free within its own set-up, there will normally be a lot more RF equipment in use in other parts of the site, with other acts or live sound hire companies.

“We normally work with the radio microphones, wired microphones and in-ear monitoring, plus all of the associated systems and gear that make them work as a whole, but having a soldering iron and scopes on site means that we can basically opera on anything if needed. We do this because we’re not just box shifters; it’s the support on top of the product. We always do all we can to be there and support on top of the product,” he added. “This can include anything from on-site repairs, frequency planning, liaising between Sennheiser engineers and hire companies/productions before the events to ensure the correct Sennheiser spec’d mics are available, licensing information and help, RF system support and the like."